Is your email becoming ‘big data’

We've all heard about the industry term ‘Big Data’ which refers to “data sets so large and complex that they become awkward to work with”. It is mostly used in reference to information stored in databases, but generically can be any set of electronic data.

Your organization's email is a ‘set of electronic data’ and your Exchange Server is (under the covers) a database. The question is – is it becoming ‘big data’ i.e. a data set so large and complex that it is awkward to work with.

It is also worth considering that your email data is not simply the data inside Exchange Server, you also need to factor in the data in PST files that may be stored on File Server or on client workstations.

There are not many tools around to help you effectively understand or manage this data. Archiving is something that can help, but many vendors will simply grab most data from your Exchange Server and move it into their archive, which simply moves the ‘big data’ problem from Exchange to the Archive.

To effectively understand and manage your email ‘big data’ you need a tool which allows you to identify and understand the data – how much is older than X, how much is larger than Y, how much belongs to the Sales team or Engineering team. However, that is only the first step. When you understand it the tool then needs to allow you to manage it, and by ‘manage it’ I mean carry out the correct action for the correct set of data. For example:

Delete all email older than 10 years

Move all PST files to a central location (so it is easier to backup)

Move all customer communications to the archive and apply 7 year retention to it

Categorize all the Engineering team data using a specific taxonomy

Preserve and Collect all data between a selected list of Custodians

Have a look at our ArchiveOne Enterprise solution, it is the only tool that gives you effective intelligent control of all aspects of your email ‘big data’. It can archive your data, but it can also do so much more – Retention, Discovery, Governance, Centralization, Relocation, Reporting. The possibilities are endless.